Exodus 4:1–9

Signs for Moses

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen^a to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,”^b he replied.

The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake,^c and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe^d that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.^e

“Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored,^f like the rest of his flesh.

Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe^g you or pay attention to the first sign,^h they may believe the second. But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become bloodⁱ on the ground.”